This Billboard Brought an Ancient Word to the Internet

A rare 17th century word finally makes its way online

Parbunkells is a 17th century word that means "coming together through the binding of two ropes" but you'd be hard-pressed to look it up. Until a few days ago, there was hardly any trace of it on the internet. There was, however, a 672 square-foot billboard of it in Queens.

The curious situation is part of an art project by Julia Weist in conjunction with 14x48, a nonprofit that makes use of empty advertising space as art installations. Before the billboard went up—which is seen by roughly 100,000 people per week—Weist annexed the valuable Google Search territory by putting up a website named after the word and getting a total monopoly on the search result. She also set up an Arduino controlled lamp in her living room to light up whenever someone visits the site and kindly asked that no one else use the word on the internet to see if such a feat was even possible.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Obviously that last part was a spectacular failure; a search for parbunkells now turns up two pages of results, including stories about the project, and defiant postings from Redditors and other internet denizens who naturally started using the word instantly and to excess. The internet abhors a search result vacuum.

While the experiment is sort of over now (Weist's explanatory webpage has been bumped down to number five in the search results), it's a fascinating little parable about how information travels on and offline. Information off the internet can seem virtually unknown, and information on the internet is inherently uncontrollable. That, and whatever it is you're talking about, someone on the internet is being just a little too dramatic about it.

A Part of Hearst Digital Media
Popular Mechanics participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.